2025 Duke's Mayo Bowl Recap
The 2024 season for Virginia Tech Football has come to a close in a less-than-ideal manner. For anyone who tells you that ending the season with a bowl win or loss doesn't matter, they are lying. At least when it comes to Virginia Tech fans, we typically will take what we can get. In the case of the 2023 season, we ended the year with a win against Tulane. It wasn't just a win against Tulane (A G5 team), but it was also Tulane without Michael Pratt, their star quarterback, and Chris Brazzell, their star receiver.
As you can see below, Pratt and Brazzell accounted for 62.1% of Tulanes total offense.
| Player | Passing Yards | Rushing Yards | Receiving Yards | Total Yards | Percentage of Total Offense |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Pratt | 2,406 | 98 | 0 | 2,504 | 48.4% |
| Chris Brazzell II | 0 | 0 | 711 | 711 | 13.7% |
| Combined | 2,406 | 98 | 711 | 3,215 | 62.1% |
| Total Offense | 3,010 | 2,171 | - | 5,181 | 100% |
Surely Virginia Tech wouldn't use that win to kickstart an offseason full of high expectations and even playoff aspirations. I mean, it was only Tulane without their entire offense. Well in a shocking turn of events, it would not stop Virginia Tech football from entering a new stratosphere of hype.
I'd chalk it up to the fact that we, Virginia Tech fans, haven't had much to root for in recent years. The last time we felt excited about our football team was heading into the 2018 football season. We were fresh off of a 9-win season in our second year with new head coach Justin Fuente. We ended the year ranked 22 in 2017. This was the last time we ended the year ranked.
2018 was the start of something new for Virginia Tech, something unexpected; but most would say shameful. We started out the year with a bang beating a ranked Florida State in Tallahassee to kick off the season. Vibes could not have possibly been higher. Not only did Virginia Tech win that game, but we annihilated and embarrassed Florida State in primetime winning 24-3. It was an utter beat-down.
After that game, it seemed like Virginia Tech was primed for a monstrous year. The only teams left on their schedule that could pose a threat would be Notre Dame and Miami - both of which would be played in Blacksburg.
Three calendar weeks after Virginia Tech beat Florida State, they lost the most embarrassing game in program history, in the worst location possible: Virginia Beach. The Hokies went into Old Dominion favored by 28.5 points. And lost. The 2018 Hokies, with all that momentum, would finish the year 6-7. Yes, 6 and freaking 7.
The fallout since this game has been nothing but pure tragedy. The fanbase and program with rich traditions have continued to fall year after year into nothingness. So, when we ended the season in 2023 with a win which gave us our first winning season since 2019... that meant something to us.
But maybe it shouldn't have. We wanted it oh so bad, but we just aren't there yet. Maybe that Tulane game that gave us all that false hope was just an ACC team beating up on a G5 team without 62.1% of their production. 2024 was a reminder that while Virginia Tech is healing, we aren't ready for real success anytime in the immediate future.
The actual bowl recap
I had to preface the bowl recap with that because it's needed to give some perspective on why this loss sort of stings more than it should. Or why this season has been so frustrating to many Hokie fans around the country. We desperately want to be at least a 9-win team. But we aren't.
We were dominated by the Golden Gophers, losing 24-10, on everything but special teams. John Love hit a 60-yard kick which I still don't think is being properly celebrated. (I am a Bengals fan*) The Bengals record for the longest kick in team history is shared between Evan McPherson and Cade York: 59 yards. This is actually a massive achievement that's getting lost.
But the real story of this game was the pure size and athletic parity between Minnesota and Virginia Tech. Minnesota is the most middle-of-the-pack Big 10 team you can find, and they made us look like we were playing in a different division (which I'll get to.) And I know people are going to say we had 18 transfers and blah, blah, blah, but both teams are playing their 2nd string players and there is no visible comparison for these teams. It's just not close.
It emphasized the idea that the power 2 will very clearly separate itself from the rest of the country. And it's certainly a real possibility that Virginia Tech will be left out of that party when it starts. I think that's where the pain comes from for Virginia Tech fans. Everyone deep down feels like they don't even know what the team is working towards because we don't know if it'll truly matter. And to get yourself into the power 2, you need to beat the power 2. Something we have failed to do.
As far as my prediction went - I was dead wrong. I wanted to believe that somehow Pop Watson could overcome the offensive line, but it was apparent from the first snap that it would be too tall of a task.
The door is shutting. And we can feel it. All we can do is find the fun in the process.